The test Orange Line train is getting longer - and filling up with sandbags

With some more cars coming in from the CRRC assembly plant in Springfield, the T can now run a longer test train of the new cars - so maybe they're still on track to get at least one of the trains in service by the end of this year. Ari Ofsevit watched it bound through Assembly last night.

Lori Magno also spotted the train - and was able to see it filled with sandbags.

U.S. is still king of the heap for diesel locomotives and the various types of freight cars by a humongous margin, because we have the largest and most mature freight network in the world. Anyone worth their salt is going to be importing our GE's (#1 in market share), EMD's, or rebuilt older power (because a well-maintained loco can easily last 5 decades, multiple rebuilds, and be re-sold to multiple owners). Or buying from various domestic freight car vendors because anything built to U.S. FRA standards is gold-standard build quality for hauling the most $$$-lucrative of goods anywhere else in the world. Nothing's about to challenge that dominance even with GE Rail being actively sold to Wabtec and some constant degree of merger/acquisition horse-trading in the freight railcar biz.

But that's about it for U.S. market power on rails. RR passenger railcars (commuter and intercity), metro/heavy rail subway railcars, and light rail are damn near kaput on this continent here except for Canada's Bombardier, which is still a dominant #1 in commuter rail coaches but has slipped up a bit lately on quality control for its subway and trolley division (and their kingpin aerospace div. is such a dumpster fire they may end up putting the rail division up for sale to foreign buyers to staunch the bleeding elsewhere). Bombardier, ironically, swallowed up Pullman and Budd who were the twin kings of U.S. railcar manufacturing. So at least U.S. dominance of decades past didn't necessarily leave the continent.

Siemens, now that it's merging with Alstom, is going for world domination in passenger RR's (they pretty much already make every new piece of Amtrak rolling stock and are a shoo-in for some humongous procurements now out to-bid). They're also making dramatic inroads with passenger (but not freight) locomotives, especially with those new Charger diesels that have turned out MUCH better in the field than the T's lemony-stink new HSP-46's. The Chinese (CRRC et al.) are likewise playing for keeps, willing to underwrite huge up-front losses in a price war to get themselves established as first-time bidders. CRRC has built many, many heavy-rail subway cars for Asia for systems very much like Red+Orange so that's all old hat to them. The Red+Orange cars should be decent, because they're pretty generic under the hood and hard for an experienced subway builder to screw up. It's North American railroads where CRRC are unproven newbies and a bit of an up-front risk, because the stuff they've built to-date is for freight-bereft Asia which doesn't even have Euroland-strict crashworthiness standards...let alone experience with the extremeness of U.S. RR regulations. I'd be wary of them winning any commuter rail coach contracts...we need another order of bulletproof Kawasaki bi-levels, not Far Eastern knockoffs like the newest Rotem/"Brokem" coaches.

CRRC has built at least 2 plants as noted but the types of train cars to be built will be different. So the ones for LA and MBTA fit the manufacturing assembly profile for the plant in MA and the one in Chicago for the cars to be built there. I believe the one in Chicago is for heavy rail coaches like those on the MBTA commuter rail system, whereas MA is for subway-like cars. They have different profiles requiring different manufacturing needs.

The long term question is sustainability and whether imposed foreign tariffs will cause those plants to cut back or close after a specific date.

Note that while CRRC is a foreign owned company, the plant operates as a US corporation and employs US people. You may want to do some research on how many of our businesses here are owned by foreign entities. Grocery chains, banks, etc, have foreign ownership or majority control.

There are plenty of companies that build transit system trains and passenger service commuter trains. The question is whether they are willing to ramp-up a final manufacturing facility on US soil to meet the "Buy America Act" requirements. Some have, or had, such plants but some have closed or gone into hibernation. Examples would be Hyundai-Rotem (the builders of the most recent set of MBTA commuter rail coaches, and Talgo which built complete trainsets with locomotives. Talgo was burned when a GOP administration went into office in WI and the state cancelled an order on trainsets already built and sitting in a yard. After a prolonged court battle the trainsets were sold into service in the Pacific Northwest. Because of this, Talgo, a company predominately based in Spain, is having second thoughts. Also closed here is Kinky-Sharyo (sp?) which built the Type 7 MBTA Green line cars.

As of now GE is manufacturing locomotives but much of that business branch was sold outright as GE reorganizes and gets out of the transportation business. The one company that seems to be gaining favor is Siemens with a plant in CA. They are building locomotives for Amtrak and also built several trainsets for the Brightline service in FL. That service has several coaches and a power car (locomotive) on each end. They resemble an Acela trainset but are diesel powered.

The MBTA is currently in talks with Siemens to see if they can get a few of the newer locomotives they are building for Amtrak (some currently on the NEC passenger service - diesel operated on Amtrak Regional service) to lease to try before they make an order for more new locomotives. Unfortunately, this is a long process to resolve. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to trains.

CRRC has built at least 2 plants as noted but the types of train cars to be built will be different. So the ones for LA and MBTA fit the manufacturing assembly profile for the plant in MA and the one in Chicago for the cars to be built there. I believe the one in Chicago is for heavy rail coaches like those on the MBTA commuter rail system, whereas MA is for subway-like cars. They have different profiles requiring different manufacturing needs.